Doorstoppers

While the writ for the 2019 federal election is still a long way from being dropped, the campaign has all but begun.

Both the Liberals of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the official opposition under Conservative leader Andrew Scheer have just finished their annual policy conventions.

For all intents and purposes, this means they are set to go, with the NDP of leader Jagmeet Singh unlikely to gather much interest when the country goes to the polls.

With the summer break in full swing, watch for Liberal cabinet ministers to continue fanning out across the nation in key ridings with investment and project cheques in hand, all with the intent of buying our votes.

This, of course, is tried and true politics, which means it tends to work unless the electorate has had enough—much like it had enough of the Wynne Liberals and, in 2015, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper.

But at least the federal Tories were not decimated, the same which could not be said of the Ontario Liberals.

They had it coming and they got it big-time.

Nothing truly notable came out of either the Liberal or Conservative conventions last week, other than the drama of seeing Quebec MP Maxime Bernier leave the party in a snit, and vowing to create his own party.

We like many of Bernier's stances, his opposition to supply management, for example, that ends up costing consumers more for milk and dairy products by limiting the amount that gets to market.

We also like his libertarian view of less government interfering with our lives, all which costs us more.

The Scheer Tories would be wise to adopt many of Bernier's positions so that they actually look and act like a party for the conservative-minded among us.

The Conservatives talk a good game about lowering taxes, but it would be nice to start seeing a platform developing that would have us aching for the election campaign to begin.

The Canadian government debt, which is the amount of money owed by the Trudeau Liberal government upon which it pays interest, pushed past the $1 trillion mark this year.

According to former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, this debt needs to be addressed, and addressed soon.

“It's important for Parliament to wrap its head around borrowing,” said Page. “We're a $2-trillion economy, but when the federal government has more than a trillion dollars of liabilities, it is significant.”

This can't continue, of course, but try to get the spend-thrift Liberals to talk about cutting debt and balancing the budget and their eyes glaze over.

They'll be knocking on our doors soon enough trying to encourage us to vote for them.

They need to be stopped at those doors with demands to right the books, and bring an end to the saddling of future generations with debt they do not deserve to owe.